The Winchester Men
by VictorianChik
Summary: In a setting where John doesn't die, all three Winchester men hunt evil together but not without challenges to authority from Sam, rash decisions from Dean, and stern parenting from John. Warning: Spoilers and corporal punishment in later chaters.
1. Chapter 1 Discussion

I'm writing more _Supernatural_ stuff because if the writers' strike continues, we need something to read about our boys. I am a big fan of flinchflower's ongoing stories on LiveJournal, so I decided to start my own series about the boys and their dad. The story will progress ve-e-e-ry slowly. I want a story where I can write 1000-1500 words for a chapter rather than 3000-4000 like my other stories. But that way I can update this more often.

So I'll start with important information such as time placement and characters. This story starts two months after the beginning of "My Time of Dying," the first episode of season two. In this story, AU I guess, John does not die, but they do lose the Colt at the hospital.

This story is not slash or wincest.

Disclaimer: I do not any these characters or their world; I just play with them in their world.

Warning: There will be corporal punishment in this story, but it will be used sporadically and is not in the first few chapters. If you did not like this, it would be a good idea to stop reading now before you get into the story and then have to stop later.

Hope you enjoy yet another tale of mine.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

The thought of hospitals always creeped Dean out. He blamed it on the scare they had had two months ago when he had nearly died in the hospital. Dean remembered the eerie feeling of wandering through the hospital, all alone, with no one talking to him or seeing him. And the hospital a year ago after nearly dying from electrocution. He was done with hospitals, thank you very much, so the idea of going to another did not make him feel comfortable at all.

"So we'll spread out," John announced as he looked over a computer-printed layout of the hospital. The papers were spread out over the table and arranged to show each floor of the hospital.

The house they were squatting in was old, three miles down a dirt road on a country highway. Really, the middle of nowhere, fifteen miles from the hospital that John felt certain was haunted. Dean believed him, but would rather have stayed far away from the hospital. The house was actually a haunted one; after clearing out two disgruntled spirits, John decided to use it as a base for a few weeks. Dean didn't really mind – the two ghosts had been an old couple that were in the middle of a fight when they died. Unable to read the label, the wife had accidentally put poison instead milk in the food. Rather than pass into the afterlife quietly, the couple, now ghosts, had stood up and kept arguing with each other.

Even when John stormed the house, the ghosts were more interested in yelling at each other rather than haunting him. Sam had been in favor of sitting the ghosts down and talking it out – John had set fire to the corpses and exorcised both of them. He sprinkled holy water and reached for the lighter, the old woman ghost had turned to John and demanded, "Do you mind? We're having an argument."

"You've been arguing for twenty years," John told them. "Time to give it a rest."

Once the bones burned, the house fell silent, and the Winchesters moved in. And John immediately found another haunting in a nearby hospital.

"I'll take the surgery and ICU along with the rooms on the second floor," John decided tapping on one piece of paper. "Dean, you get the emergency room and third floor. Sam, the kids' ward and out patient care."

"But Dad," Sam hovered over the layout, "aren't we sure the demon is somewhere near the emergency room? Two out of the four incidents where the doctors went crazy happened in the emergency room."

"Yes, but the other two happened on the second floor and the ICU with patients. We need to search the entire place."

"Let me and Dean go," Sam urged. "We have the lab coats in the car – we can pretend to be medical students again."

"Sam –" John sighed.

"Or visiting doctors. No one will give us a second look. And that way you can focus on other stuff, like cleaning up the weapons and researching our next hunt."

"In other words, sit this one out?" John fixed Sam with a pointed look.

"Dad, you nearly died!" Sam protested. "If we hadn't gotten to you before the Demon –"

"That's enough," John announced. "I didn't die, I'm fine, and we're hunting this thing together."

Sam looked at Dean, hoping for back up. Dean shrugged and grabbed his soda can to keep drinking. Sam swallowed what he really, really to say to the both of them and stalked off to the bathroom to shower.

"What's wrong with your brother?" John asked without looking up from the papers.

"He's a girl," Dean quipped.

John looked up with a frown.

"He's just worried about you," Dean amended.

"I'm fine," John insisted. "I got you back, you got me before the Demon could, and we're all good though we did lose the Colt."

Dean shot the man a quick glance to see if that comment was supposed to be a critique of him and Sam, but John was already staring back at the map.

"And I don't appreciate your brother's attitude," John continued.

Dean wanted to sigh. Whenever Dad got mad at Sam, Sam went from being Sam or Sammy to "his brother." Dad would tell him to tell his brother to get it together or shape up or cut the attitude.

"He act like this a lot on the road?" John asked.

"Dad, don't do this," Dean said softly.

"Excuse me?"

"Don't start in on Sam right before a hunt," Dean said. "I know you guys don't agree on everything, but Sam works really hard. And he never asked for this."

"And I did?" coldness showed in John's eyes, but Dean saw the hurt on the man's face, the pain that had traveled with him on back roads and cheap motels for twenty-two years now.

"No, but you took the call a little better than he did," Dean smiled sadly. "You had training, Dad, with all the Marines stuff."

"I trained you two," John pointed out.

Dean knew he would not win the argument. Dad's sense of righteous, his honor and drive for justice, it made him a great soldier. Sometimes a pain for a father, but a great soldier and a ruthless leader who got the job done at any cost.

"I'll talk to him," Dean promised. "He's just tired."

John's head shot up again.

"Yeah, yeah, we're all tired," Dean anticipated John's next objection. "Seems like I can't remember a time when we weren't sleep-deprived. But I'll set him straight."

"Good boy," John nodded, returning to the map.

Dean smiled, this time with pride at his father's words. That was as close as Dad would get to saying "I'm proud of you" or "I love you," but it was enough from Dean. He understood his father's language better than Sam because Dean would like to think he spoke pretty much the same language.

By the time Dean went up to the bedroom he shared with Sam, Sam had finished his shower and came out in his usual night wear: a tee shirt and thin sweat pants.

Sprawled on one of the twin beds and eating beef jerky, Dean glanced up at him. "Why are you dressed like that? It's only eight o'clock."

"You know the man," Sam rolled his eyes. "He'll want us to get to bed so we can have an early start."

"We _are_ tired," Dean said evasively, looking away from Sam.

"You might be tired," Sam snapped. "I'm not."

He flopped down on the other bed, crossing his arms and stretching his long legs out past the edge of the bed.

"You're a freak," Dean teased. "I told Dad to stop feeding you when you hit six feet, but he thought you had grown all you would. Such a sad mistake, and now I live with Big Foot."

"Shut up," Sam growled.

"Seriously, dude," Dean sat up on his bed, "what's with the attitude?"

"It's a hospital. A hospital!" Sam threw out his arms. "You know what happens to us in hospitals?"

"Yeah, nothing good," Dean nodded. "But this time we're not there because we're hurt – we're going in, voluntarily."

"That's right – involuntarily!"

"No, I mean we're going of our own free will," Dean rolled his eyes.

"We're still going in."

"We can't just walk away from a case," Dean insisted. "We're here to do a job. You and me and Dad, too."

Sam opened his mouth to say something, but Dean shook his head.

"No, Dad's here with us. And you know how the game goes – when Dad's here, he's in charge."

"And when he's not, you are?" Sam challenged.

"Yeah," Dean grinned, liking the idea.

"So I'm never in charge?" Sam crossed his arms. "I'm the youngest so I have to do whatever you tell you me for the rest of my life?"

"It might not be that long if you don't shut up," Dean told him. "And who cares who's in charge as long as we're doing our job and hunting?"

"Easy to say when you're not lowest man on the totem pole!"

"Stop sulking," Dean ordered. "Dad told me to straighten you out. We need to focus on the case, and we can't do that if you're all hell-bent on griping at Dad."

"What does it matter?" Sam retorted. "You're enough of a suck-up for both of us."

"Hey," John stood in the doorway, arms crossed over his chest, looking like a rock fortress of strength and might, "why don't you boys go on to bed?"

Sam gave Dean a wide-eyed look that said "_See? What did I tell you_?"

"Sure, Dad," Dean began but Sam cut through.

"We're not tired."

John gave Dean a look that said "_I thought I told you to straighten him out_," and Dean wanted to growl in frustration.

"Go to bed, Sam," John ordered.

"It's eight o'clock," Sam yelled. "And you can't tell me what do anymore."

"What?" John looked dangerous and foreboding.

"Yeah, we're not kids anymore," Sam rolled off the bed and stood to face their dad. "I'm twenty-three – that's old enough to decide whether or not I want to go to bed or hunt or put up with any of your crap."

Before Dean could blink, John had crossed the room and grabbed Sam by the shoulder, gripping at a place between the young man's neck and shoulder bone, a sensitive joining of nerves, that made Sam wince in pain. Sam leaned towards his dad's hand, trying to relieve the pinch and pull away, but John was having none of it.

"Stop it right now," John ordered. "We agreed in the hospital would you stop arguing."

"Yeah, 'cause I thought things would be different," Sam protested, still leaning. "I thought we would be a team, not a drill sergeant and his recruits."

"Oh, please," John scoffed, "you wouldn't know what a drill sergeant was. I put up with all your excuses and your backtalk and your brother's trolling for girls –"

"Hey!" Dean objected, but one look from John silenced any further protests.

"But I need you to work with me on hunts," John continued as if Dean had not spoken.

"You mean work _for_ you," Sam muttered. "Ow, ow, okay I get it."

John gave him one more firm squeeze before letting go. "Sammy, get to bed. Dean, you go clean up the kitchen and we'll talk about tomorrow."

"All right, Dad," Sam said, subdued. "I'll listen to your plans and I won't say anything else."

"No, you've done quite enough," John shook his head. "You want to give me attitude? – you go to bed then. Good night."

John strode out of the room, leaving Sam to gape at his brother.

"Did he just send me to bed?" Sam asked incredulously.

Dean considered it, gave a half-sorry grin, and then turned and left the room as fast as he could.

Alone and frustrated, Sam thought about kicking one of the bed legs, but seeing as he was barefoot, he settled for stomping back to the bathroom to brush his teeth.

It was going to be a very long hunt.


	2. Chapter 2 Tension

AN: I know this story has been left so long you probably all though it had been abandoned, but I'm updating everything apparently. This is a short chapter, but I promise to have more soon. And I apologize for the song that will haunt you long after you stop reading.

Disclaimer: I do not own.

--

They were going to visit a sick friend – that was their story for going into the hospital. Once he went downstairs, Dean had discussed options for getting inside with John. They had considered going as doctors, janitors, even priests (that had been Dean's idea which John shot down), but eventually they just decided to act like they were visiting someone.

"After all," John pointed out, "no one checks visitors anymore. If you walk in with a gift, they assume you know a patient, and if you don't ask questions, they think you know which room to go into."

"So," Dean leaned back against the counter, "we just go in to look around and then leave?"

"Yeah," John nodded, "once we get a feel for the place, we can go back as doctors or something."

Dean nodded his agreement, too. It felt good – working alongside Dad again, like they were a team. Dean was sorry Sam couldn't get onboard, that Sam had to pitch his little fits and sulk, but Dean did not see why they couldn't all work together. So Dad was in charge, so what? Someone had to be in charge, and did Sam think he could do a better job than Dad? Dean knew he and Sam had pulled some pretty wild attempts and been successful in their hunts, but Dad had years of hunting on them.

But Dean, ever the big brother, felt he had to make a plea for Sammy even if their dad wouldn't listen.

"Sam's just on one of his things," Dean waved a hand as it that would explain everything. "PMSing, you know. Come on, Dad, can we just give him a break? Can you cut him some slack?"

"Excuse me?" John raised a questioning eyebrow.

"For this case – the whole hospital hunt – can you not ride Sam to the ground like you usually do?"

"You're questioning my methods?" John crossed his arms, a dangerous sign this early in the hunt.

"No, I'm not questioning," Dean tried to stand his ground, but John wasn't having any of it.

"Listen to me," he pointed a finger at Dean. "You and your brother are going to get in line for this hunt, right now. I'm not going to spend time arguing with you or with him. You either follow my orders or you pay the consequences. Is that clear enough for you?"

"Yes, but –"

John raised both eyebrows.

"Yes, sir," Dean corrected himself, "I understand, but Sam can't . . ."

Dean trailed off at the look on his father's face, the same look that John had worn when Sam left for college and Dean begged Dad to go after him. It was that Winchester stubbornness, the stubbornness that could get them through pain, loss, and heartbeat, but that didn't always allow for easy communication between the three guys.

"I'll try to keep him in line, sir," Dean promised.

"Good, then let's get working on cleaning the gear," John directed.

And Dean knew their conversation was over.

They worked quietly for a few hours, and then John told Dean to go to bed. It was not quite eleven, but Dean trudged up the stairs. Sam was in his bed, the room dark. Dean was sure he wasn't asleep, but Sam did not move or speak so Dean got into the other twin bed without a word.

--

The ride to the hospital was tense, Sam staring out of the backseat window, refusing to look at Dean or John. Dean, who was driving, tried to keep his attention on the road. He wished he could make some sort of flippant remark that would make everyone laugh and relax. But that never worked with John and Sam together. With just Sam, Dean could try to goof off, and when that only made Sam more upset, Dean could tell him to loosen up, and then Sam would burst out in temper, and they could have a proper fight that let Sam get it all off his chest.

Dad was a little more complex – Dean had to time his quips just right when John was displeased about something. Making jokes too late, and John would tell him to stop playing around and get to work. Too early, and John would threaten to tan his hide if he kept up the attitude. But if Dean hit it just right, John would give one of his rare half-smiles, slightly amused at his son's humor. One time – Dean would never forget it – he had made John laugh out loud. Immediately after, John had shook his head and commented that Dean's brashness would get him soundly thrashed sooner or later, but Dean could see the pride in his eyes even as his old man griped.

But John and Sam together were impossible. Dean couldn't get Sam riled up enough to end the pouting without John butting in, and Dean couldn't joke around with John without Sam huffing at being left out. For years now, Dean was trying to find the right one-liner that would stop the tension between the two, but he had not been successful thus far. Worst of all, Dean usually ended up aggravating the situation further.

One time in particular, Dean's off-handed remark had sent Sam into a verbal attack of their father and his "misguided, stupid ideals" which had sent John into a rage. The evening had ended with Sam crying face-down on his bed, and John lecturing Dean for provoking Sam, John gesturing with the folded belt that he had used on poor Sammy. Dean had received two swats for causing trouble, but then he had to go to bed listening Sammy cry brokenly over having such a harsh father.

Dean glanced down the clock. They had been in the car eight minutes, but it felt like an hour. Absentmindedly, Dean began to hum Metallica's _Ecstasy of Gold_, tapping his thumbs against the wheel. It was such a bummer that he couldn't find cassettes of his favorite bands anymore – everyone was on this CD faze that apparently was here to stay. A decade before, Dean had been so sure it was a fad that would not catch on because who wanted to trade in all their cassettes, but no, everyone had bought the freaking CDs.

"Would you stop humming?" Sam suddenly exploded in the back. "No one wants to hear you."

"You're brother can hum if he wants," John shot back.

Dean blinked. John was usually the one who told him to be quiet. Dean fell silent, but John ordered,

"Keep humming, Dean. You're not sulking like some people."

Nervously, Dean kept humming. But he began to forget the melody, and his tune started to drag until he sounded like a broken refrigerator. The roof of his mouth was beginning to ache, and he wondered how long he would have to keep it up.

They still had five more miles to go when Dean was struck with a brilliant idea, a way to end the tension.

Softly at first, he began to hum _It's a Small World_. He grew louder as he reached the verse part, making up the words in his head to keep the humming going:

_We are just three guys, and one awesome car,_

_And we have our guns and we drive so far,_

_So we fight and we grin,_

_To Metallica's S and M,_

_It's a Small World after all._

Dean grinned as he hummed, wondering what the two passengers would say if they knew the lyrics going through his head. He could tell the moment John recognized the tune – the man stiffened and turned slowly to look at Dean, almost not believing what he was hearing. Sam froze too, staring at his brother.

Dean hummed right through the chorus and started another verse in his head:

_We hunt spooky things, and a lot of ghosts,_

_But it's the shape shifters that we hate the most,_

_So we shoot really fast_

_And we'll so kick your -_

"Dean!" John roared, making his older son jump.

"Yes?" Dean asked innocently.

"That's enough," John decided. "No more humming."

Silence reigned in the car for a few seconds as they got closer to the hospital. And then Sam started humming the song under his breath, barely audible but there all the same.

"Sam," John warned.

"He put it in my head!" Sam nearly wailed. "I can't stop it."

John glared at Dean, but Dean pulled the car into the hospital parking lot, trying not to smile. He had gotten his dad and brother to forget their tension as they united in outrage over the world's most annoying song. It was almost worth the having the song play over and over in his own head, Dean reflected.

He couldn't help grinning as they started for the building. He planned to make Sam carry the flowers that they would buy in the gift shop, a huge bouquet of pink flowers with sparkly ribbons and a cherub basket.


End file.
